Science Objectives for Everyone
NanoRacks-Los Gatos High School-Corrosion Behavior of Pure Iron (NanoRacks-LGHS-Iron Corrosion) studies the corrosion of iron in a microgravity environment. Iron is an important building material and potentially available in meteorites and planets other than Earth. Its corrosion characteristics in microgravity are important in determining its usefulness as a building material outside of Earth.

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The following content was provided by Cathy Messenger, BS Biochem, MEd, and is maintained in a database by the ISS Program Science Office.

NanoRacks-Los Gatos High School-Corrosion Behavior of Pure Iron (NanoRacks-LGHS-Iron Corrosion) investigates the behavior of iron as it is exposed to corroding elements in a microgravity environment. Iron is available in meteorites and potentially the soil on Mars and may become a useful building material if space is colonized.

NanoRacks-LGHS-Iron Corrosion visualizes corrosion patterns and also measures the ability of the iron to conduct electricity through electrical resistance testing.

NanoRacks-LGHS-Iron Corrosion enables scientists to begin to understand whether building materials such as iron will show different characteristics in a microgravity environment than they do on Earth.

Description

NanoRacks-Los Gatos High School-Corrosion Behavior of Pure Iron (NanoRacks-LGHS-Iron Corrosion) is an investigation on the effect of microgravity on the corrosion pattern rate of iron. Hypotheses include: the rate of corrosion increases due to increased collisions between acidic vapor and solid iron, the pattern of corrosion is round and more evenly distributed (versus on Earth where according to research, uneven oval patterns are seen).

The NanoLab unit is composed of two custom designed printed circuit boards, a camera board, 8 glass vials containing samples of iron, a plastic base with reservoirs containing acidified or deionized water, a plastic “bladder” used to “eject” a metal pin and line up the vials and the reservoirs upon initiation, and accompanying wiring and sensors for light-emitting diodes (LEDs), humidity, and electrical resistance. The following data is collected throughout the 30-day period: photographs, electrical resistance and humidity measurements.

If space is colonized, understanding whether iron can be used as an on-site building material is critical. Since humans require water, this water will be in any human inhabited environment and may therefore be available to corrode iron or other metals used as building materials.

Earth Applications

This is a STEM educational project that is being used to teach high school students about engineering. A team of eleven students is working with three adult mentors to design and implement this experiment. These students are our future engineers and astronauts.

NanoRacks Module-22 is completely autonomous and only requires installation and removal. NanoRacks Module–22 returns on 33S.

Operational Protocols

Crew interaction with Module-22 is limited to transferring the NanoRacks locker Insert from the launch vehicle to the ISS, installation and activation of the NanoRacks Frames into the EXPRESS Rack Locker, cleaning of the air inlet filter (as necessary), and data retrieval (as needed) during the mission.

Los Gatos High School students Matt Milford and Ty Laughlin show the mechanical pieces that hold the NanoRacks-Los Gatos High School-Corrosion Behavior of Pure Iron (NanoRacks-LGHS-Iron Corrosion) investigation. Image courtesy of Cathy Messenger.

Calum Finlayson, Los Gatos High School, works on the software for the NanoRacks-Los Gatos High School-Corrosion Behavior of Pure Iron (NanoRacks-LGHS-Iron Corrosion)experiment. Image courtesy of Cathy Messenger.